This article contains spoilers for the first five episodes of Netflix’s Squid Game: The Challenge.
As a decades-long reality competition fan, I’ve watched thousands of people get booted off shows in different ways. Whether it’s Jeff Probst snuffing torches on Survivor, Gordon Ramsey taking back his Hell’s Kitchen jackets, or mixed martial artists leaving the UFC’s Octagon bruised and defeated on The Ultimate Fighter, every series has its own way of ending a player’s dream of winning a grand prize.
But, a simulated death by shooting? That’s a new one for me.
And that’s how contestants are biting the dust on Netflix’s Squid Game: The Challenge.
Nearly 500 hopefuls competed in the streaming platform’s first iteration of a reality show based on Squid Game, the wildly popular South Korean scripted series. Most of the contestants who were eliminated in Squid Game’s win-or-die challenges were shot, and Netflix did their best to recreate the harrowing effect — without actually terminating the contestants, of course.
We got our first taste of players’ “deaths” during “Red Light, Green Light,” Squid Game: The Challenge’s opener. More than half of the 456 contestants were eliminated in the childhood game, and each one underwent a simulated shooting. We’d hear a pop, or “shot,” and a player’s chest would flood with dye to symbolize blood.
So, how did Netflix create the death effect?
Bryn Williams, a games technical consultant for the series, explained the process in a video posted by Netflix to YouTube. Essentially, every player wore a waistcoat that strapped a squib pack in front of their chest. A squib pack is commonly used in the industry to create the effect of someone being shot and the blood that follows.
“The squib’s release — high pressure through a nozzle,” Williams said. “And the contestants will immediately feel that.”
When a contestant was “shot,” they typically jolted in shock at the mechanism going off. And to really sell their death, they’d fall back onto the ground and lay motionless. “The players’ experience when the squibs go off is really quite essential to the whole gameplay,” Williams said.
Elements SFX co-owner Nick Rideout showed off the white waistcoat every player was outfitted with. The squib’s system was nestled in the back of the coat, with a line connected to a pouch by the person’s sternum. The squib was connected and activated by a remote button. You can check out the video explaining the apparatus below:
Well, whoever doesn’t get shot and is left standing during December 6’s finale will walk away with $4.56 million and the accolade of Squid Game: The Challenges‘ first champion.
